Art / Not Art

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<p>I do (and did) understand your earlier post when you described art in experiential terms, i.e., "nearness." </p>

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<p>Yeah me too.</p>

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<p>I think that Edgerton was primarily an engineer who was interested in showing the capabilities of his invention.</p>

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<p>No, I don't think that was his motivation. In the summer of 1984, I went to MIT and took a high speed photography course taught by Harold Edgerton. At the time, I was working on high speed video systems which was a technology that was just becoming available. As the classes were 6 hours per day, we would have a morning and afternoon break.</p>

<p>Dr. Edgerton knew some of the work I was doing, and just prior to one of the breaks, I had asked him a question and he indicated that he wanted me to follow him. We went into an adjacent lab and started talking about the question I had asked and then the conversation diverged over a number of subjects. The following day, at the break, he said to me, "I want you to see something." I followed him into another lab. On the work table was a side-scan sonar unit.</p>

<p>He said, "Watch this," and turned it on. It produced an image of the fluorescent light fixture above the table, and you could easily make out the tubes. At that point, I asked him why he was working in sonar and he told me because it allowed him to see things he had never seen before.</p>

<p>I asked him if that's why he did high speed photography and his answer was long and started when he was first working at MIT.</p>

<p>He told me that in the beginning, he did photos just to see what the strobe was capable of doing - trying to bound its performance capabilities. He, of course, was helped by Kenneth Germeshausen and Herbert Grier who were both electrical engineering graduate students at that time. Together, they would work on the strobe to find out how short could they make the exposure time, and what kind of electric control circuits would be needed to control the strobe at increasingly shorter flash durations.</p>

<p>When they had the strobe to the point they could control it for exact durations, Edgerton found that he just wanted to find out what things looked like for the length of the flash duration. The group would think up a subject to look at and see if they could setup the system to capture that instant in time. As the high speed photos became more well known, students would suggest ideas and people would write letters to Edgerton suggesting subjects for high speed photos.</p>

<p>If Edgerton found the suggestion interesting and he wanted to see what the suggested subject would look like - he'd make the photo.</p>

<p>This even gets to the reason he started the instrumentation of atomic bomb tests - because he wanted to see what the bomb and its effects looked like - and he knew that EG&G was the only company with the technical capability to solve the problems associated with instrumenting the tests. While the contracts required certain data to be recorded, it also required solving a myriad of problems from triggering the bombs at specific instant to making recordings at intervals of 1 millionth of a second and shorter.</p>

<p>From my discussions with Dr. Edgerton, I think it was partly the challenge of solving complex problems; but mostly that solving the problems allowed him to see things that no one had ever seen to that point.<br>

<br /> Isn't that what art and being an artist is all about - making things that have never been seen until your create them?</p>

<p>Further to Steve's testimony:</p>

<p>In my opinion, it's clear that Edgerton was somewhat artistically motivated, though he resisted the label of "artist" (which he seemed to find diminished his work). This quote is from Edgerton in 1987. I have bolded the key word that supports my claim:</p>

<p>.</p>

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<p>"In many ways, unexpected results are what inspired my photography. ... [he then describes the surprises revealed by his pictures of a bullet passing through a light bulb] The <strong>experience</strong> of seeing the unseen has provided me with insights and questions my entire life."</p>

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<p>.</p>

<p>He didn't write 'discover,' or 'observe,' or 'record'; he wrote '<strong>experience</strong>.' What one <strong>experiences</strong> is not (supposed to be) scientific. What one <strong>experiences</strong> is subjective, kinetic, near/far, personal, ... it goes to art.</p>

<p>I can <strong>observe</strong> <a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/scienceart_photo1.jpg">THIS</a> Lennart Nilsson picture of the interior of the fallopian tube with the ovum cell as of anatomical interest. Or I can <strong>experience</strong> it in ways that are not at all to do with anatomy or science. When I 'observe' the ovum is neither close nor far; it may present me with interesting facts (I weigh its plausibility against the strength of the evidence presented). When I 'experience' the ovum, it's close, it's is full of character, it acts, it goes ... etc. That's my experience (as opposed to my observations).</p>

<p>Observation IS experience. </p>

<p>I thought a quote might be appropriate, just to offer an alternative view of observation.</p>

<p><em>"To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them."</em><br /> <strong>--Elliott Erwitt</strong></p>

<p>I'd say Erwitt and Avedon were photographers for whom SEEING (observing) was a key act. They were probably less concerned with their feelings and a so-called closeness to what they were observing. A lot of Erwitt's photos, in particular, never seemed about closeness or nearness to me, and instead depend on a kind of distance, while other photographers do seem to get close.</p>

<p>But, nearness aside, photography in particular, as a craft and as an art, seems to a significant degree about observation.</p>

<p>When you see Art, Julie, you will know it. It is special...it is talking to you... and taking you on a special journey... too a special place.</p>

<p>It will reach towards you with arms out stretched and both of you will embrace in understanding.</p>

<p>But, you need to cast your culture perceptions aside, your shallow trench of understanding....remove the words of others....</p>

<p>And become the unique, the unique, Julie mind.</p>

<p>Then you will understand and the journey will begin.</p>

<p>"lot of Erwitt's photos, in particular, never seemed about closeness or nearness to me, and instead depend on a kind of distance, while other photographers do seem to get close."</p>

<p>Why would that matter? Do they work, express an Art? For me a big Yes!</p>

<p>Clever and perceptive an insight to us.</p>

<p><em>"Why would that matter?"</em></p>

<p>Allen, it mattered in this discussion, because Julie had mentioned "nearness" as a defining quality of art and I thought I'd present Erwitt as an alternative to that point of view.</p>

<p>As I suggested in my post, from which you isolated only a phrase, nearness/closeness doesn't matter, which is why I mentioned that art can come from and go to either place, just as (and I've said this above) all dichotomies don't much matter. What matters is the work and the expression. </p>

I agree with your thoughts, Fred.

<p>Although I think Julie was discussing art/not art in the experience of it as opposed to art's creation, the viewer's experience of observing art. From either's point of view, I suppose near/far distinctions apply, near and far being measures of distance. Near suggests intimacy, distance more scientific. </p>

<p>There are some mural sized photographic mosaics at Kaiser I saw recently. A broad picture emerges that is made by the arrangement of the tiny photographs of people that are the larger shape's pixels. Overall that mosaic suggests lots because of how it was made, the multiple subjects becoming a subject in the final form. A picture can be more engaging when compared to the words it would take to arrange into an expression of the same meaning, perhaps allowing us to become more intimate with the meanings within the image in an observational experience that is our apprendation of a work of art.</p>

<p>I'm reminded that every art appreciation class I ever had (were there more than one or two??), the purpose of the class was to help make art more accessible to the student. As was that the purpose of the literature classes, theater, dance. Because everybody can get it.</p>

<p><em>"Near suggests intimacy"</em></p>

<p>I agree, in most cases. Intimacy is something well worth discussing relative to photos. As a matter of fact, we had a thread on it years ago that was quite productive and provocative. We talked about intimacy, how we achieved it, how we felt it as observers, etc., what it meant to us or did for us.</p>

<p>I'd find a discussion like that much more rewarding than one that tries to suggest that intimacy is a necessary quality of art and that photos without intimacy are not art.</p>

<p>The purpose of this thread strikes me similarly to the ubiquitous threads posturing film against digital. You're either in the club (one of us) or not in the club (against us). Art is not such a club. Or, at least, it shouldn't be.</p>

<p>The moment we suggest intimacy is a defining quality of art and distance as a move toward science (presupposing science isn't art, which is questionable in itself), it will be up to the next artist to prove us wrong. And he always will. Art will not be lassoed.</p>

<p>We can keep searching for that magic, secret sauce that makes us artists or that makes us look at things as art but we will always come up empty. Because while we're searching for the secret, others are making things that will expose that secret and whisper another one we hadn't yet discovered or heard of.</p>

<p>What defines art is a nexus of contrasting, overlapping, and ironic or even nonsensical qualities, including its own denial. There is no singular ingredient worth pointing to. It's about putting together the various and changing ingredients and appreciating some traditional and some very different and as yet unexperienced flavors and tastes.</p>

<p>It's not sweet and it's not sour. It's not near and it's not far. Well, it is . . . and it ain't.</p>

<p>Riefenstahl's <a href="http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=leni+riefenstahl+olympia+photos&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=QapEUuXzAoLoiALZwoCoDQ&ved=0CBgQsAQ">OLYMPIC PHOTOS</a> are a good case in point. And a good counter-argument to the question of intimacy. I consider these photos art. And, though I normally consider muscular male physiques hot, these are some of the coldest and most non-intimate photos I can imagine. Part of the art, IMO, has less to do with any individual quality I could name (intimacy, nearness, beauty, soul, . . .) and more to do with perspective, lighting, technique and the fact that her Olympic photos do to athletes what her Third Reich photos did for despots. Now, we could get off into the politics of it all, but let's not for the moment. I'll simply say she was genuinely expressing a point of view and doing it well and it's more the luster and strength of character (not moral character, of course) with which she did it than anything resembling intimacy or closeness.</p>

<p>In the picture of the playing card, the bullet has flown past the card and there is a wavy sliver of card hanging in an open middle space between the top and the bottom of the card. </p>

<p>Don't you at least think that this shows some artistic choices being made?</p>

<p>I totally agree with the first comment. As soon as we look at an image we know it is art through its visual impact. It may be scientific and mechanical for some because of the photographic process but it should also be thought provoking at the same time like the Martin said the space between.</p>

<p>This is really artistic. I've been trying to capture whirlwinds before.....those small ones that form whenever there is a thunder storm. I've never been able to find the perfect combination of aperture and shutter speed.</p>

<p>Ramon, you may enjoy performance artist Francis Alÿs's videos where he tries to get <em>inside</em> of small tornadoes to experience them from the inside. [ <strong><a href=" and [ <strong><a href=" ]</p>